


A Step up from Semaphore

by Elenothar



Category: Stargate SG-1
Genre: Fluff, Getting Together, Linguistics, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-08
Updated: 2018-07-08
Packaged: 2019-06-07 05:27:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,330
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15212186
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Elenothar/pseuds/Elenothar
Summary: Together they make a language.





	A Step up from Semaphore

**Author's Note:**

> Only a few years late to the fandom...

 *

 

 

**I: Phonology**

 

 

“Well this is just dandy.”

 

Daniel almost sighs. Jack sounds even more pissed off than his usual ‘unexpected things have happened off-world and I don’t like it’ agitation.

 

“It’s fine, we can get out of this. I don’t think the Alians mean any harm with this… knowledge exchange.”

 

“ _You’re_ the linguist, that’s the whole point. It’s your shtick, your forte, your _thing_.” A pause. “If this is some elaborate set-up to get me jabbering in tongues I’m going to kick your ass.”

 

“Yes, Jack, I went behind your back to ask the friendly aliens of the hour to please lock us in a room together until my extremely obstreperous lunkhead of a friend can deign to make noises unassociated with the English language.”

 

“… No need to get testy.”

 

Silence falls, and Daniel doesn’t have to look to know that Jack is shifting restlessly on the balls of his feet, fingers tapping a quietly insistent rhythm on the barrel of his P-90. Daniel keeps his eyes firmly on the door controls while Jack thinks through their options.

 

“Has it occurred to you that I might not be able to do this?” There’s nothing but cool assessment in Jack’s voice; no embarrassment, no shame. If there’s something Jack has always been good at it’s the kind of strategy that comes with knowing each of their strengths and weaknesses. His personal motto may as well be ‘blind spots happen to other people’. “Team building is all well and good, but the whole point of having a diverse team is so that we cover each other’s weak spots.”

 

“Shouldn’t have made that comment about my prowess then,” Daniel mutters, but he knows he sounds more amused than anything else. He’s fully aware that Jack respects his skills (even when they get in the way of Jack’s command decisions, which admittedly happens more often than either of them would like) and the teasing is just par for the course.

 

Jack seems to be thinking along similar lines. “How was I supposed to know that teasing isn’t a concept these feather-dusters understand?”

 

For a brief moment Daniel considers reprimanding Jack for the rude language, but he’s long ago given up on getting the other man to stop with the nicknames. At least he’s indiscriminating – best friend, co-worker, alien species, no one’s safe.

 

“Anyway, you do just fine with French, Spanish, Arabic and Farsi,” Daniel points out to get them back on track – no matter his certainty that the Alians will let them out eventually even if they fail, he’d rather get back to Sam and Teal’c and the food they’d been whisked away from for this little side trip. “And those are just the ones I’m certain about.”

 

Though he’s still studying the door controls, he can hear the scowl in Jack’s voice.

 

“Don’t go ruining my mystique now, Doctor Jackson.”

 

The little shiver of distraction that always runs through him when Jack says his name in _that_ tone of voice isn’t enough to stop him from noticing that the control panel had lit up while Jack was speaking.

 

“Huh.”

 

“Huh _what_?”

 

The panel blinks again, brief green followed by longer red.

 

“I think you’re going to have to talk the door open.”

 

Behind him Jack takes a deep breath. “I realise I’m in danger of repeating myself here, but _what_?”

 

Daniel points at the panel. “The door controls are keyed to your voice. If you tell the door to open, it should let us out. This is just a test of our team work, after all, not truly meant to imprison us.”

 

He turns around just in time to see Jack bite back whatever pointy remark had tripped onto his tongue, though the following “What, like ‘open sesame’?” isn’t much better.

 

“In _their_ language, Jack.”

 

“Do you even know what _open_ sounds like in their gobbledygook?”

 

Daniel closes his eyes, casting his memory back to when he might have heard the word, and comes up with something that slightly hurts his throat to re-create, a combination of whistles, trills and clicks.

 

When he opens his eyes again, Jack looks like he’d very much like to shoot something, possibly himself.

 

“Daniel,” he says slowly, “there’s no way I can make those sounds, you know that right?”

 

“I’m pretty sure an approximation will do,” Daniel tells him because one of them needs to be optimistic about this and it definitely isn’t going to be Jack by the looks of it. He’d rather avoid the inevitable diplomatic upset if Sam and Teal’c storm this room, guns blazing. “I’ll walk you through it.”

 

Jack’s lips are moving soundlessly in what Daniel is pretty sure is his very own prayer for patience in the face of linguistic weirdness (or maybe just in the face of Daniel, but he’s hoping).

 

“All right then,” Jack bites out, gesturing for Daniel to go on.

 

It’s not the first time Daniel has realised how deep Jack’s trust in him goes, but it never stops amazing him. He hides his smile by turning back towards the door.

 

“It’s a sequence of five sounds, a whistle followed by a trill, followed by two different clicks and then another trill. The clicks are actually quite similar to those in African languages, such as in the Khoisan and Bantu groups. Actually, there’s one click language in Australia as well, though they have an egressive click… Anyway, I’m assuming they’ve compensated for our vocal apparatus’ incapabability of creating the same nuance as their – ”

 

“ _Daniel_.”

 

Too much information, right.

 

“Fine, let’s start with the whistle.”

 

 

Listening to Jack work his way through the avian aliens’ language sounds, Daniel wisely keeps his amusement to himself. He does wish he had his camera on him, though, because Sam and Teal’c would love to see this footage – even if Jack would kill him for shooting it in the first place.

 

 

 

 

 

**II. Morphology**

 

 

“They think we’re married,” Jack repeats flatly. “What did we do this time?”

 

A barely muffled giggle-snort emanates from the direction of their unhelpful teammates. When Daniel turns to squint towards them to make sure that it was Sam and not some as yet undiscovered depth of comedic expression from Teal’c, they’re both bent over Sam’s mass of equipment for testing the maybe-naquadah the MALP’s sensors had reported. The maybe-naquadah that they can only get their hands on if they don’t piss off the locals as they usually end up doing, one way or another.

 

Daniel resists the urge to scratch at his hairline. “We didn’t do anything as such,” he ventures, wondering how best to put the impending linguistic disaster. “It’s our names. More specifically, my last name incorporating your first name – it’s their linguistic equivalent of taking your spouse’s last name on earth.”

 

Jack looks like a headache is setting in. Daniel can’t really blame him – the number of times cultures offworld have mistaken their regrettably non-romantic relationship as something more is starting to reach ridiculous digits. While Jack seems to be contemplating suicide via knocking himself out with his gun, Daniel continues on autopilot, “It’s actually really fascinating, their language is agglutinating, so adding morphemes onto already existing words to add to their meaning makes – ”

 

“ _Daniel_.”

 

“Jack.”

 

“Do we have to go along with it?”

 

Daniel keeps his back to the locals’ curious gazes. “From what I understood of the chief’s explanation, um, bonded couples have a higher status in their society than unbonded singles. It would give us an edge in the negotiations and we wouldn’t need to try to explain why our names mean something different, especially given that several Earth cultures do have a similar system. But I don’t think they’d become violent if we didn’t.”

 

Jack shifts to face the rest of his team. “Teal’c?”

 

“I do not believe these people wish us ill,” Teal’c says in his measured way, not that it stops him from keeping a secure grip on his staff weapon. “The village shows no fortifications – should it come to conflict we will be able to extricate ourselves.”

 

Jack nods, and then he’s looking at Daniel, raises one eyebrow that says _are we doing this or not?_ Daniel shrugs in return, wiggling his hand to and fro. _Fine by me_.

 

Their gazes meet for a moment longer and Daniel has to resist the urge to blink before Jack nods, once, decisively.

 

A moment later he’s by Daniel’s side, one hand sliding perilously close to Daniel’s ass, and says, loud enough for Sam and Teal’c to hear, “All right then, schnookums, let’s get this show on the road.”

 

Daniel’s smile when they move forward to resume negotiations with the chief is only a little strained. This mission is going to involve an epic case of blue balls, he can tell, but for the moment the warmth of Jack’s hand and presence is seeping into his side and he can’t quite bring himself to regret anything.

 

 

A few hours later, standing in the doorway of the hut he and Jack have been shown to for the night, he’s almost ready to rethink that stance.

 

The only way two grown men would be able to fit onto that slip of a bed would involve far more physical contact than Daniel prefers to contemplate.

 

“Cosy,” Jack observes, dry as the sands on Abydos.

 

Daniel eyes the hard-packed dirt floor doubtfully. “I’ll take the floor.”

 

“What, and risk blowing this whole operation? You were the one who said we should play along with their ‘cultural assumptions’.”

 

The inverted commas are audible in Jack’s voice. Daniel winces.

 

Jack saunters over to the bed, bouncing a little as he sits down. Daniel _knows_ that smirk – it spells trouble.

 

“Besides, Dannyboy, I don’t bite. Much.”

 

 

 

 

 

**III. Syntax**

 

 

Jack is the very definition of a garden path. Halfway through the sentence you think you know exactly where he’s heading and then _bam!_ he goes off in a completely different direction. Except for how it’s less what Jack’s saying and more what Jack does, but around that point the metaphor starts to fall apart. Case in point:

 

They get back from P5Z-429 with a rather closer understanding of each other’s anatomy than is good for Daniel’s mental state and he fully expects Jack to brush off the incident like they have countless others. At first he seems to be right on the money, too. He doesn’t see Jack at all the next day, which would be less abnormal if Jack didn’t usually come to harass him in his office at least twice a day.

 

Yet when, for a change, he goes to bug Jack in _his_ office, which for some reason (probably related to Jack’s loud protest that he doesn’t even _need_ an office, thank you very much) is at the ass end of the base, the conversation doesn’t go at all like Daniel thought it would.

 

Jack is sitting behind a heap of paperwork that he pretends he doesn’t work through studiously when they have the time in between all the running and cursing and visits to medical.

 

“You need to decorate in here. It’s sad,” Daniel says. No need to jump into the proverbial frying pan immediately. Besides, he hasn’t been in Jack’s office for months, probably because Jack is rarely ever in it, and it really does look barren.

 

Jack shrugs, but his eyes are suddenly keenly focused on Daniel. “It works.”

 

“Just because something is functional doesn’t mean it can’t be better.”

 

“If I let you decorate there’re just going to be lots of creepy masks on the walls and rocks on the shelves.”

 

Daniel grins. “Given that it’s your office, I’m sure I could compromise with the occasional hockey poster.”

 

Jack leans back in his chair. “Wanna tell me why you’re here, Daniel? Or should I take a guess and say it has something to do with the way we woke up hugging the shit out of each other yesterday morning? And that’s me being euphemistic, if you catch my drift.”

 

Daniel blinks, startled by the bluntness. Perhaps he should’ve expected it from Jack, but fact is he _really hadn’t_ and a blush is already threatening to creep across his cheeks. It’s a good thing Jack’s back is to the camera.

 

Jack’s smile turns distinctly self-satisfied. “Right on the money.”

 

“Uh, should we be discussing this here?”

 

Jack shrugs. “You were the one who brought it up.”

 

“No, I wasn’t,” Daniel points out. The fact that he’d been working towards bringing it up doesn’t count. It’s Jack who blew this one out of the water.

 

“Were.”

 

“Wasn’t.”

 

“Were. Meet me at mine for dinner.”

 

Sometimes Jack is enough to cause whiplash. “Wasn’t. Fine.”

 

So they’re going to talk about it after all. For someone who got everything he wanted from an encounter Daniel feels annoyingly discombobulated. Leave it to Jack to blow right past Daniel’s carefully curated bullet point list on why they should stop dancing around this thing between them.

 

 

Dinner is as dinner always was, which is strangely comforting. But what comes after is new. They end up on Jack’s couch, an ugly battered thing that’s devilishly comfortable. Just like Jack’s shoulder. Occasionally, Jack’s hand reaches up to brush through Daniel’s hair and he finds himself hard-pressed not to make any embarrassingly contented noises.

 

This isn’t the end of the sentence he had expected, but he’ll gladly take it.

 

 

 

 

 

**IV. Semantics**

 

 

Jack always says exactly what he means except when he doesn’t. The man has made a career of being as honestly blunt as possible, not that the Air Force always appreciates it. The only problem is that when he _does_ talk around the truth, obfuscates, it’s damnably hard to spot because you just don’t expect it, unless it relates to his health. Jack is notoriously unreliable in his self-reporting of pain or weakness levels.

 

The result is that a whole host of people has made it their mission to understand Jack well enough that they at least know when to look out for less than perfect honesty. Though inroads have been made, as far as Daniel can tell no one has got quite as far in that task as Daniel himself.

 

So when Jack had said ‘There’s a mountain of reasons why we shouldn’t’, Daniel had heard ‘How do we make this work?’ and ‘We’re both insane’ turned into ‘I love you too’. It’s a bit like translating a different language entirely, but it’s certainly useful while at the SGC, where it’s perfectly ordinary for Jack to proclaim his annoyance at Daniel, but an announcement of love would probably land them in medical to check for alien influence before they could say oops.

 

Still, _usually_ Jack seems to be of the opinion that dissembling is a waste of time.

 

Which is why Daniel isn’t that surprised by what happens on P6W-WW4 – or the planet of the mind-readers, as Jack immediately christens it. The inhabitants seem to be on a similar technological level as earth (though they’re more cautious about making those kinds of assessments ever since the Nox) and look human. Really, the only thing out of the ordinary is the telepathy, which had come out when Daniel had talked to a ‘gate warden’ through the UAV. Apparently these people have a policy of always warning visitors of their physiology, as some had not taken kindly to it in the past. Looking at the stubborn set of Jack’s jaw, Daniel can easily imagine how that went down.

 

Still, they are greeted politely and led to the closest town to the gate, where an official-looking group is waiting for them. The leader introduces herself as Alina and as best as Daniel can transpose her explanation onto familiar cultural standards, she’s the mayor. It’s a little surprising to be greeted in such serviceable English, but then language barriers seem to be of no concern for a telepathic race.

 

Daniel runs through their opening spiel (peaceful explorers, trade, exchange of knowldege – yadda yadda yadda as Jack would say) on autopilot, acutely aware of penetrating eyes studying all four of them.

 

Alina confers with her attaché, then says, “We will negotiate with him.” She points straight at Jack. “No other.”

 

Silence. Then Jack says, all but stabbing his chest with his thumbs, eyes so comically wide-eyed that it can only be on purpose, “Me?”

 

She inclines her head. “Your mind thinks – ”

 

And here she says something in their own language. Daniel frowns. It sounds enough like Latin that it’s probably derived from Ancient, but the specific word combination is tricky. Straightforward lines? Organised paths? English doesn’t seem to have the vocabulary necessary to deal with telepathy. Either way, it would make sense, he supposes. Daniel is well aware how his own mind jumps between theories and facts and other thoughts so quickly as to probably qualify as higgledy-piggledy, and he’d be willing to bet it’s the same for Sam. Teal’c is a mystery, as usual, but he can definitely buy that Jack is more… ordered about things. That doesn’t mean Jack thinks less, whatever he’s keen to pretend, and he’s as prone to overthinking as Daniel, just in a much shorter span of time, but he might well be less chaotic about it.

 

Jack looks at him out of the corner of his eye and Daniel, long used to hoping he’s getting a translation right rather than knowing for certain, mouths ‘straightforward’. Jack’s eyebrows twitch upward.

 

“You have our word that neither you nor your companions will be harmed,” Alina adds, before any of them can even voice their concerns. Telepathy. Right. In what would usually be the privacy of his mind Daniel admits that there’s a marked difference between knowing someone knows what you’re thinking and being confronted with proof.

 

He can tell that Jack is less than thrilled with all of it – he values privacy, _control_ in a way that Daniel doesn’t and this must be going against his very grain. But if Daniel has thought it through and come to the conclusion that they’re already reading their minds anyway and Jack agreeing to conducting the negotiations won’t actually change that, then Jack certainly has and he’s nothing if not pragmatic.

 

“Sure, fine, negotiate away then,” Jack says, though the smile he directs at Alina can hardly be described as jovial. “Just don’t expect me to start spouting legalese of any kind.”

 

Alina looks puzzled, so that probably doesn’t translate well, even mentally, but smiles back politely.

 

“This way, Jack O’Neill.”

 

With a last pointed look at Teal’c, the ‘look after the kids’ kind of look, Jack follows her, and another of the group steps towards Daniel.

 

“Would you wish a tour of the city? We have a library we think you might enjoy.”

 

Though he doesn’t like being separated from Jack offworld, even willingly, Daniel’s reaction to libraries has been bordering on Pavlovian for years, and standing among towering stacks of information he can’t exactly regret his immediate enthusiastic response.

 

 

For once, their mission goes off without a hitch of the ‘we nearly died again’ variety. In fact, they return to the SGC with only one unexpected circumstance under their belts.

 

“Colonel O’Neill is what?” Hammond says, looking like he very much wants to pinch the bridge of his nose and probably not because the briefing room is stuffy.

 

“They promised it would wear off in a few days,” Jack says quickly, fingers tapping a quick rhythm on the table. “Apparently they don’t negotiate with anyone at a disadvantage. Very fair-minded, those folks.”

 

Daniel looks down at his pad to hide his smirk. Even sudden telepathy doesn’t seem to have changed Jack.

 

“As you can see I’m perfectly fine, so there’s really _no_ reason for me to have to get checked out by medical,” Jack continues in a rare display of boundless optimism. Daniel doesn’t need telepathy to interpret Hammond’s glare.

 

Jack slumps.

 

 

“What was it like?” Daniel asks drowsily, snuggling further into Jack after they’ve declared ‘sex when one of the participants is telepathic and knows exactly what the other one wants at any given moment’ a rousing success.

 

Jack is silent for a long while, absent-minded fingers drawing through Daniel’s hair.

 

“Not like you’d think,” he finally murmurs. “It took conscious effort for me, maybe because I wasn’t used to it. Mostly not worth the bother. Carter was constantly thinking about maths and Teal’c isn’t exactly loquacious in his mind either.”

 

Daniel shifts a little so he can see Jack’s shadowed face. “And me?”

 

Jack’s quicksilver grin shakes loose a niggling bit of worry.

 

“Your mind was all” - Jack’s hand swoops through the air - “even more exhausting trying to keep up than when you’re babbling this stuff out loud.”

 

He draws Daniel a little closer. “Besides, I don’t need telepathy to know what you’re thinking most of the time.”

 

That, Daniel supposes, has always been true. Still, he kind of would’ve liked the chance to apply this telepathy thing in reverse.

 

 

 

 

 

**V. Non-verbal communication**

 

 

A lesser woman might’ve heaved a sigh of relief at the extremely uncommon quiet from Colonel O’Neill in the face of being poked and prodded in the name of medicine. But Janet knows him well enough to identify the minute lines of stress around his mouth for what they are, and she’d also seen the white knuckled grip the Colonel had had on the edges of the bed he’s perching on until he’d noticed her gaze and consciously relaxed his fingers.

 

No, temporary muteness isn’t a good look for someone who lives and breathes control at all times. They’ve given him a notepad and pen, but he hasn’t bothered writing any of his objections down – he knows it wouldn’t get him anywhere. Besides writing things down takes time and instructions are then easily missed or ignored. Janet finds her own mouth tightening in sympathy and silently curses SG-1’s predilection for trouble of the ‘Jack accidentally insulted the inhabitants of P-whichever-planet-they’re-on-today and they punished him by taking away his voice with an unknown gadget’ kind. And now they’re here, she hasn’t actually found anything physically wrong with him, and they’re forced to hope that the natives’ assurance that it’ll wear off after 24 hours is correct because she has no idea how to fix it if it’s not.

 

She looks up from the chart she’s reading for the third time as the door opens to admit Daniel. His breathing is elevated and he looks slightly mussed – he hasn’t run to medical, but he did rush, gaze immediately fixating on the Colonel. Janet has to turn away to hide her smile. Neither of the men would enjoy being called ‘adorable’ to their face, she knows, but that doesn’t make it any less true.

 

“Jack?”

 

As far as she can tell the Colonel’s only reaction is to intensify his glare, but Daniel all but slumps in relief.

 

Some days her grumble that they need an SG-1 to English dictionary is a less funny than others, and more deadly earnest. Eyebrow movement would take up a whole chapter. Unfortunately the only person who could possibly write such a dictionary happens to be _on_ SG-1, and is thus unlikely to collaborate.

 

Janet doesn’t even try to stop Daniel when he takes a peek at the Colonel’s chart. There’s no keeping those two out of each other’s business.

 

“I see you’ve bamboozled science yet again,” Daniel observes, plopping down into the chair next to the Colonel’s bed that the medical staff definitely don’t keep around exactly for situations like this because they’re supposed to encourage worried team mates/friends not to hover in medical.

 

The Colonel’s mouth quirks.

 

“Sam is raring to get a look at the Endosan’s device, you know.”

 

The Colonel crosses his arms, almost-smile turning into a scowl in a heartbeat.

 

“Good thing we got that misunderstanding all sorted out,” Daniel continued blithely.

 

It’s fascinating, this half conversation. It’s as if the Colonel is talking, as far as Daniel seems to be concerned.

 

“You were being very cooperative, Jack.” Daniel looks thoughtful, but the teasing glint in his eyes gives him away. “In fact, quite a few aspects of my job are easier when you’re quiet.”

 

The Colonel’s eyebrow is developing a tick, but some of the tension in him is easing, as if despite himself. Janet doesn’t think he would tolerate teasing about his current muteness from anyone but his team, but from them? It actually seems to help him.

 

Neither of the men is paying much attention to her, though they’re not doubt still aware of her presence, and she realises that she’s just been standing there, watching, for slightly too long. Fascinating their communication may be – and reassuring that the Colonel now has someone at his side who can understand him without having to write every little thing out – but she does have other things to do.

 

Janet is just about to turn away when a loud crash from the other side of the ward has the Colonel’s head snap up, all sings of discontented ease disappearing into tense alertness. A shout echoes through the room and then the quarantine lock-down siren goes off. All the doors slide shut.

 

The Colonel gestures towards the isolation chamber, head cocked questioningly.

 

“SG-12 had their post-mission check-up this morning,” Janet says, her heart beginning to pound. The shout had sounded a lot like Doctor Warner’s voice. “Matthews and Cho’s blood showed abnormalities. Warner continued their examination in the quarantine examination room.”

 

There is still hope that lockdown caught the affected members of SG-12 before they could get out, but while she’s thinking that the Colonel is gesturing urgently at Daniel, who scowls even while he’s taking her hand to drag her to the other side of the bed. The Colonel, meanwhile, flops himself down, suddenly looking for all the world like he’s hurt enough to be unable to move from the bed. If Janet didn’t _know_ he’s fine except for his voice, even she would buy that he’s unconscious at first glance. That man’s control over his body is almost unreal, particularly for how effortless he makes it look.

 

The sound of footsteps draws nearer and next to her Daniel tenses, coiled for action. The Colonel doesn’t move at all, not even when Matthews bursts into the room, snarling. Even from a few metres away Janet’s practised eye can see that he’s sweating abnormally, breathing heavily and flushed, eyes wild. Definitely not in control of himself.

 

As soon as Matthews catches sight of them behind the Colonel’s bed, he starts forward – to do what she can’t guess, but given his current state it probably won’t be pleasant if he does reach them. But Daniel keeps still, and she takes her cues from him, unwilling to get in the way of the Colonel’s plan, whatever it is.

 

Matthews draws level with the bed, and finally the Colonel _moves_. In the blink of an eye he’s up and behind Matthews, sweeps the man’s legs away from under him and rides him down, landing with a knee in the small of Matthews’ back. Matthews fights him the entire way, writhing and growling, but he can’t get the leverage needed to shake the Colonel’s grip on his neck. He’s going to do himself damage if he keeps fighting like this though.

 

“Sedative?” Daniel asks, but she shakes her head.

 

“I don’t know if it could react with whatever is in his system, and I don’t know if Warner found anything either way.”

 

Daniel’s mouth draws down. “Restraints it is then.”

 

Janet doesn’t like it any more than he does, but she suspects Daniel’s reasons are a little more personal. The Colonel’s issues with being restrained are well-known.

 

They have just started around the bed to help the Colonel, Janet heading for the supply cupboard and Daniel towards where the two men are still engaged in a struggle on the floor, when Cho stumbles into the room. Janet’s eyes go wide. Cho is showing the same symptoms as Matthews, sweat, flush, balance problems, but not as extremely – potentially making him even more dangerous. She glances at the Colonel and finds him looking back at her, a steady understanding in his gaze. Then he draws back on arm and punches Matthews out cold. Janet winces even as she accepts the necessity. Daniel is hardly helpless these days, and neither is she, but when it comes to hand-to-hand combat the Colonel is far out of their league. In fact, rumour has it that of all the personnel on the base, only Teal’c stands a chance against him in the rare case that he really gets going. That time a group of would-be conquering aliens made it through the iris in the wake of an SG team and challenged the leader of the SGC to single-combat for control of the base has already become an SGC myth to all those who hadn’t seen the Colonel take him on.

 

The move to neutralise Matthews had cost him precious seconds and the Colonel only just gets back upright to meet the charging Cho, his momentum twisting his body so that the fist heading for his face passes just shy of his head. Without the element of surprise and hampered by not wanting to seriously injure Cho, the Colonel is at a disadvantage. Janet can only watch the two warring men, refusing to flinch when blows land with muffled thuds amid Cho’s ragged breathing and the Colonel’s eerie silence, and keep the occasional eye on the downed Matthews. The last thing they need is for him to wake and join the fray. In fact, if she could get him on one of the beds to restrain… she looks around for Daniel, who has vanished from her side, just in time to see him pop up at Cho’s back. Cho, in yet another exhibit of proof that the affected’s higher brain function is compromised, doesn’t even notice, so focussed is he on the Colonel, and bellows in surprise when Daniel gets him in a bear hug from behind. Once again, Daniel and the Colonel seem to communicate just fine without words, moving as one to bring Cho down to his knees.

 

“Where do you want him?” Daniel pants, shaking his head in a vain effort to right his glasses without using hands that are still busy restraining Cho.

 

“Get him on the bed,” she instructs and finally goes to fetch the heavy-duty restraints that always turn her stomach but are needed with depressing regularity. “If whatever they have is contagious, we have it already.”

 

At Daniel’s Look, she quickly adds, “It’s unlikely, since the other members of SG-12 checked out fine and according to their timeline of when Matthews and Cho were bitten they should’ve been showing symptoms already.”

 

The Colonel jerks his head at Daniel, does something with his eyebrows that makes Daniel frown, even as they heave the struggling Cho onto the Colonel’s vacated bed.

 

“Where are the rest of SG-12?” Daniel asks, voice slightly strained with the effort of keeping Cho’s legs still while Janet attaches the leather straps and the Colonel all but sits on the man’s chest to stop him from wriggling away.

 

“They are under observation in one of the other quarantine rooms, just in case. They must’ve been locked in when the alarm went off in the examination room.”

 

With Cho’s hands secured, she steps back to give the Colonel room to get off the bed. She doesn’t like the grim cast to his features, but there’s little she can do about it. As she goes over to check on the still unconscious Matthews – the Colonel really knows what he’s doing – out of the corner of her eye she sees Daniel shift ever so slightly until his shoulder brushes the Colonel’s.

 

She smiles to herself. The Colonel is in good hands while he waits for his voice to come back. Daniel has always known just how to listen to him, words or no words.


End file.
